Fortinet Survey Reveals Cybersecurity Strategies of EMEA Enterprises

Dubai – MENA Herald: New research from Fortinet®, the global leader in high-performance cybersecurity solutions, has revealed cybersecurity strategies of IT decision makers (ITDMs) at 250+ employee organisations across EMEA :

48 percent claim the best response to increased security breaches is to invest in new cyber security technologies that provide protection across the entire threat lifecycle.

The two greatest concerns of ITDMs were securing the cloud and protecting against vulnerabilities in IT systems: Securing the cloud: 53 percent for the region and 61 percent of Spanish respondents – the highest in EMEA Protecting against vulnerabilities in IT systems: 53 percent for the region and 59 percent of Italian respondents.

However, many see increased security breaches as a catalyst for outsourcing cybersecurity functions to a managed security service provider (MSSP). In all, the research found that within three-five years, 44 percent of EMEA organisations could be addressing their cybersecurity priorities through outsourcing. The forecast for cybersecurity outsourcing adoption is highest in Germany (where a 14 percent of all organisations will make the switch) and slowest in Spain (4 percent).

“Our independent study highlights the urgent need among enterprise-scale organisations from all sectors in EMEA to prioritize end-to-end cybersecurity protection with actionable, threat intelligence capabilities in the face of new digital business challenges,” said Patrice Perche, senior vice president Worldwide Sales & Support, Fortinet. “Enterprises need to respond more rapidly and effectively to security breaches by investing in integrated, adaptive cybersecurity architectures for the borderless network. Fortinet is uniquely equipped to deliver this security without compromise through a seamless, comprehensive security fabric.”

Findings Advocate Need for Security Fabric and Actionable Threat Intelligence The survey examined the response tactics of those affected by cyber attacks to illustrate how present security infrastructures have struggled to contend with the realities of an increasingly digital world. Of the half (52 percent) of all EMEA IT decision makers in the survey who reported a security breach in the last year, only 16 percent of them realised this within minutes of the breach occurring.

In some sectors, such as healthcare, it took 50 percent of respondents days, months or even years to spot breaches.

Such a deficiency in rapid, effective threat identification and response is proven to be highly costly to breached organisations as sensitive data is lost, systems are compromised and brand reputation is damaged.

The survey found that, to mitigate these attacks and better protect their organisations, the number one action undertaken by ITDMs is the use of threat detection technologies (17 percent), closely followed by cloud-based cybersecurity services (12 percent). Such capabilities are underpinned by the provision of actionable threat intelligence.

In terms of how and where new threat intelligence capabilities may be applied, 35 percent of those asked said they had their own threat research/incident response team monitoring all security activity in place today, though the number is only 26 percent in Italy compared to 42 percent in Germany. Meanwhile, 26 percent of respondents claimed to outsource their cyber threat intelligence to a managed security service provider; of those respondents 22 percent in Spain and 31 percent in the UK outsource their threat intelligence.

“IT decision makers understandably want more resources to combat threats from all directions, but the answer doesn’t have to come in the form of spending more or ripping and replacing existing solutions,” said Alain Penel, Regional Vice President – Middle East, Fortinet. “Fortinet’s open, adaptive security fabric shows how enterprises can achieve true end-to-end protection with security capabilities that share intelligence across the entire attack surface. We are unique in providing the same breadth of capability and performance whether enterprises choose to retain in-house control of their own cybersecurity infrastructure, or use the services of an MSSP partner from our growing global community.”

Note on Survey Methodology The 2016 Fortinet Global Security Survey was a research exercise undertaken on behalf of Fortinet by independent market research company Lightspeed GMI. The survey involved 1,399 qualified IT decision makers in 13 countries – predominantly CIOs, CTOs, IT Directors and Heads of IT – from organisations larger than 250 employees.